I’ve got fed up of dodgy and unreliable streams and my girlfriend wasn’t using her NowTV box, so I decided to take the plunge and use their Sports Pass for today, using my bank details on her account.

I think I’d gladly pay for day, week or month passes on this next year to get a good quality and reliable (and legal) means of watching F1. It’s working out well so far, especially having all the support races and features available on SSF1 too.

Looking forwards to avoiding race result and watching highlights on C4 tonight. A combination of Ryder cup and no Martin Brundle along with a poor race in prospect makes it an easy decision. Being a Sky sunscriber for the football it will be a pleasant change for me.

Commercial sponsorship enabled Frank Williams to enter F1 and build his multi-title-winning team, enabled Eddie Jordan to covert his junior league outfit into grand prix winners, Peter Sauber to switch from sports cars to F1, and Jackie Stewart to start a team from scratch. It enabled them to largely employ the best available drivers – without resorting to pay pedallers – off the back of global TV viewerships.

So, Messrs Maffei and Carey, here’s the deal: Cancel all pay-TV contracts and chase eyeballs, whether via TV footprint or digital media. Offer free race broadcasts across the globe, with value-added services being the end-game. Sure, broadcast income initially will reduce, but managed correctly teams/corporate sponsorship will increase in proportion to offset any losses. Eventually.

I think that's all a bit naive. The sums involved in F1 are far beyond what they used to be. Also, sponsorship has changed a lot. I doubt that there are many deals of significant value to be had out there. There's a limit to what exposure you can get if, as a sponsor, you choose to align yourself to an F1 team. Bernie knew that and offered sponsors a better deal with him. Times have changed a lot since the days of Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan and Peter Sauber.

But I still think its harder for teams to find sponsors when the product is hidden behind a paywall. Why would a company today do a huge Vodafone size team title sponsorship knowing F1 is not FTA in most countries? Look at Williams loosing Martini will they get replaced? And McLaren has never been able to replace Vodafone never mind all the other sponsors that have left them.

I'm sure that the deals with the subscription broadcasters are very lucrative in the short to medium term.

But who wants so pay millions for their logo on the side of a car that very few people can see?

F1 costs are very high, the financial climate is still recovering from the 2008 crash...but there is still sponsorship money out there....and it's not going to F1 any more because few people can actually watch it. And with the quality of the product getting no better, how many people will be paying to watch it in 10 years time?

It comes down to the product, Premiership Football is behind a paywall yet all teams are well sponsored and have very lucrative deals with companies because they are involved in a sport that is entertaining and mostly unpredictable. Current F1 is dreadful and has been for years, unless your a die hard fan you would never watch F1. Why anyone would want to own a team unless you are a billionaire with a son who isn't good enough to be in the sport otherwise is baffling.

Manchester United are getting £75m a year from Addidas and another £70m a year from Chevrolet,

F1 teams would hand over an arm and a leg for those numbers!

That's the point, though. If you have £75m to spend, would you spend it on an F1 team or Manchester United? Which do you think would be the most beneficial? In the past, F1 might have been able to attract big sponsors, but I would say that times have changed. Many other high-profile sports have gotten bigger and many sports that were not high-profile in the past, now are. There's a lot more places for big sponsors to put their money and I think F1 has dropped right down the list.

It comes down to the product, Premiership Football is behind a paywall yet all teams are well sponsored and have very lucrative deals with companies because they are involved in a sport that is entertaining and mostly unpredictable. Current F1 is dreadful and has been for years, unless your a die hard fan you would never watch F1. Why anyone would want to own a team unless you are a billionaire with a son who isn't good enough to be in the sport otherwise is baffling.

Kind of.

The EPL gets prime time coverage on the UK's biggest channel BBC1.

Also there is many more games a year aired than F1 GP Races. 3-4 games a weekend vs one race every 2-4 weeks.

Also look at how the advertising is in terms of coverage, animated advertising boards only showing one sponsor at a time, very effective at giving coverage to that sponsor no matter where the camera is, and only 2 teams, so the coverage of each team's sponsor will be high as well.

VS F1 where 10 or so teams fighting for coverage of sponsors on their cars, and the track side sponsors relying on old obsolete fixed signs. Which require special camera movement to give them coverage.

Also it seems the tv deals arent that great for F1 compared to EPL

Revenue at Formula One has raced to a total of $16.2 billion over the past 15 years outstripping its closest rival the FIFA World Cup of soccer according to new research.

Thats a fraction of what the TV deals are worth for the EPL.

I feel F1 needs to push for FTA again, which seems to be happening everywhere except the UK, and then charge for value added extras such as live timing, archive footage etc. Sponsoring track side should be EPL style, and car sponsors showed on screen whilst we watching that car's onboard. This should also reduce reliance on horrible track side camera's so we get more onboard footage.

I would disagree. In any given test day, the fastest times are usually set before lunch.

This is more apparent during the second test with bonafide quali sims followed by race sims, but the trend is pretty much set from Test 1, Day 1.

Besides, because the clock resets each day, it's always reasonably intriguing to watch the lap-times tumble as the mornings progress, even if they aren't threatening the aggregated timesheets.

I suppose you could make an equivalency with free practice. The first half is reserved to establish a competitive order, and the second half for longer runs and development work.

Whilst the fastest lap times are indeed around lunchtime, this is more than negated by the tedious morning installation laps (granted these are less frequent as testing goes on).

The long runs are the interesting thing during testing imo. But appreciate not everyone feels the same on that count!

Would be cool if we got some footage of the fastest laps of the morning before settling down for the live long runs. Will never happen, it will just be that Scots Sky Sports lad interviewing driver after driver instead.

Testing coverage will be boring IMO so you get to see the cars on track for the first time teams only ever do test runs try stuff out etc does not warrant full coverage IMO. If it is raining no cars on track boring.

Testing coverage will be boring IMO so you get to see the cars on track for the first time teams only ever do test runs try stuff out etc does not warrant full coverage IMO. If it is raining no cars on track boring.

Still no word on whether Channel 4 will send their own team to races or just broadcast highlights of the Sky coverage?

Not sure if posted before but yes they are sending their own team to the races, so far it is Steve Jones, Coulthard, Webber, Jordan and Edwards and Lee McKenzie as before, the only ones that have left are Chandok and Suzie Wollf, they have also taken on Billy Monger which will interesting, so a strong team.

I think I’d gladly pay for day, week or month passes on this next year to get a good quality and reliable (and legal) means of watching F1. It’s working out well so far, especially having all the support races and features available on SSF1 too.

I've been using Now TV to watch F1 for a few years now. I do so via the app on my PS4. I used it for the races Channel 4 didn't have live so the 24 hour package was the one I usually went for. That will have to change this season however. I need to calculate what the most cost effective method is. I'm sure someone has already done so.

The coverage itself is good and the quality is full HD. I've had minimal issues with buffering. The only downside is it's delayed by a few seconds which can be annoying if, like me, you enjoy discussing the race online whilst it's happening. Otherwise it's a non issue.

I've always been very picky with picture quality. The now tv picture, whilst not full HD, is perfectly acceptable if you're using a smart TV or NowTV box. No experience of Ps4 but I'd assume it's just as good. The only platform I would recommend avoiding is laptop or android TV box which can be flakey

I kind of enjoyed it. Chandhok is great. If I had one criticism it would be that there was a bit too much general chit-chat about the state of play and not enough about what was actually happening on track. But I enjoyed it nontheless.

I kind of enjoyed it. Chandhok is great. If I had one criticism it would be that there was a bit too much general chit-chat about the state of play and not enough about what was actually happening on track. But I enjoyed it nontheless.

Is that not because what is happening is generally quite dull? Long runs where they're brimmed on fuel, systems checks, all that rigmarole...

To each their own, but I don't really get the appeal. If they went back to the days of each team running two cars at testing, it'd be a bit more watchable, but still dull. Friday practice is boring, but pre-season testing is on a whole different level of dull as far as a TV spectacle goes.

I kind of enjoyed it. Chandhok is great. If I had one criticism it would be that there was a bit too much general chit-chat about the state of play and not enough about what was actually happening on track. But I enjoyed it nontheless.

Some times, details of the running, etc - even outside of any context these are useful and interesting. Yesterday it took them ages to even mention that Magnussen was in the Haas, rather than Fittipaldi.

Testing is from Tuesday next week onwards you're right there's absolutely nothing not even a daily roundup. I'd be surprised if that doesn't change its probably a scheduling oversight in the tv guide.
I don't expect it to be live on sky again, I'd guess it will be exclusive to the F1 website. But that's just a guess.

Testing is from Tuesday next week onwards you're right there's absolutely nothing not even a daily roundup. I'd be surprised if that doesn't change its probably a scheduling oversight in the tv guide.
I don't expect it to be live on sky again, I'd guess it will be exclusive to the F1 website. But that's just a guess.

F1 TV don't appear to be doing it either. Looks like they're checking numbers to see if it's viable.